Cristina Odone is a journalist, novelist and broadcaster specialising in the relationship between society, families and faith. She is the director of communications for the Legatum institute and is a former editor of the Catholic Herald and deputy editor of the New Statesman. She is married and lives in west London with her husband, two stepsons and a daughter. Her new ebook No God Zone is now available on Kindle.

Britain's great scientist, Robert Boyle, would be living in America if he were alive today

More than 300 years ago, Robert Boyle predicted 24 achievements that would benefit humanity. As co-founder of the Royal Society, his list focused on the field of science (though the word had yet to be invented), and included submarines, sleeping pills and aeroplanes.

The list, part of an exhibition to celebrate the Royal Society's 350th anniversary, will be on show next Monday, but already it has prompted lots of back-patting in the media: We have made the prophecies come true! Boyle would be so proud… etc.

But the truth is this: if he were alive today Boyle would probably not be here in Britain – he'd have emigrated to America. Like thousands of British scientists, Boyle would be part of the brain drain that finds, in America, the funds and the freedom to realise scientific ideas.

Despite the huge fuss made of science and scientists in this country, and the popularisation of the subject by celebrities like Sir Robert Winston and Richard Dawkins, Britain simply isn't putting the money up front. Scientific funding lags behind America in terms of percentage of GDP – we spend less than 2 per cent, while the US spends almost 3 per cent on research and development. The difference may seem insignificant, but the consequence is anything but. As The Narcissism of Minor Differences, Peter Baldwin's book on the Europe-US divide, explains, the US has almost 300 patents per million population, while the UK has just over 50.

Robert Boyle would be particularly alarmed by the other obstacle that scientists in this country must overcome. As one eminent neurologist explained to me over a drink recently, it's not just underfunding that scientists have to fear if they stay in Britain. The animal rights lobby is vicious, and the government too lenient in its handing of it. When my friend started experimenting on lab rats to test some of his theories about neurological impulses, he received a few green-inked letters and a couple of fliers full of gruesome pics. He then progressed to experiment on rabbits. All hell broke loose, he remembers. He began to receive abusive phone calls, his lab was broken into, his car tyres slashed. When, within the year, he received an offer from an American University, his wife begged him to accept. That was 12 years ago, and he sees no possibility of returning here.

Britain is no longer a haven for some of our best and brightest scientists, then. Would Robert Boyle have predicted that?